Eating and cooking are just some of the activities seniors participate in during the second-semester advanced Latin class.
“I choose to do a unit on food because food is a gateway to learn about culture and history,” said Latin teacher, Dr. Allison Das.
For the most recent project, students translated different Latin recipes into English, and then created a modern adaptation to cook the recipes. The recipes came from one of the oldest Western cookbooks from Ancient Rome, Apicius’ De Re Coquinaria.
Before starting the project, the students took a field trip to Pizarro’s Pizza, where they observed a cooking lesson.
“We learned how to make Roman-style pizza, which is different from traditional pizza as you’d think of it,” said senior Madison Burba.
Roman-style pizza is made with many toppings and typically has a crispier crust.
This field trip gave the class the experience they needed to succeed in their translated, modern version of the dish they created for their project that required them to show pictures of their Latin food to their classmates.
“Some people are doing some really interesting ones, like we have an ostrich recipe someone is doing,” Burba said.
Senior Catherine Gordon and Burba cooked apricot-glazed pork for their project.
“And there’s a French toast one,” Gordon said, referring to another pair’s project.
Ancient Roman cuisine was known for using different types of ingredients that Kinkaid students would not have been able to find.
“For instance, the Romans used lead as a sweetener,” said Dr. Das. “They were also fond of dousing everything with a chunky, fermented fish sauce called ‘garum,’”
Das said she wanted her students to gain hands-on knowledge and experience through this project, and learn more about the culture of the language they have been studying for so long.
